GM crops have become a symbol: either you're for agribusiness or you're against science. But for all the heat, GM crops are something much simpler: one of many tools we need to explore to meet the farming challenges of tomorrow.

Take a swab of saliva from your mouth and within minutes your DNA could be ready for analysis and genome sequencing with the help of a new device.

University of Washington engineers and NanoFacture, a Bellevue, Wash., company, have created a device that can extract human DNA from fluid samples in a simpler, more efficient and environmentally friendly way than conventional methods.

The device will give hospitals and research labs a much easier way to separate DNA from human fluid samples, which will help with genome sequencing, disease diagnosis and forensic investigations.

“It’s very complex to extract DNA,” said Jae-Hyun Chung, a UW associate professor of mechanical engineering who led the research. “When you think of the current procedure, the equivalent is like collecting human hairs using a construction crane.”

This technology aims to clear those hurdles. The small, box-shaped kit now is ready for manufacturing, then eventual distribution to hospitals and clinics. NanoFacture, a UW spinout company, signed a contract with Korean manufacturer KNR Systems last month at aceremony in Olympia, Wash.

The UW, led by Chung, spearheaded the research and invention of the technology, and still manages the intellectual property. Separating DNA from bodily fluids is a cumbersome process that’s become a bottleneck as scientists make advances in genome sequencing, particularly for disease prevention and treatment. The market for DNA preparation alone is about $3 billion each year.

Conventional methods use a centrifuge to spin and separate DNA molecules or strain them from a fluid sample with a micro-filter, but these processes take 20 to 30 minutes to complete and can require excessive toxic chemicals.

UW engineers designed microscopic probes that dip into a fluid sample – saliva, sputum or blood – and apply an electric field within the liquid. That draws particles to concentrate around the surface of the tiny probe. Larger particles hit the tip and swerve away, but DNA-sized molecules stick to the probe and are trapped on the surface. It takes two or three minutes to separate and purify DNA using this technology.

It bothers me that an American university which receives American tax dollars for funding has decided to contract with a Korean company to manufacture this amazing device. We will never solve our economic woes if we don't bring mfg back to the US.

From deadly nightshade to eye surgery and truth drugs; from poison gas to pesticides and cancer therapy; from explosives to treatments for heart disease; from natural toxins to new starting points for drug discovery. The unexpected relationship between chemical weapons and medicines will be explored, interspersed with curious parallels drawn from the speaker's 20 years of being a chemist.

Applying a maxim from computer science to biology raises the intriguing possibility that life existed before Earth did. An extrapolation of the genetic complexity of organisms to earlier times suggests that life began before the Earth was formed. Life may have started from systems with single heritable elements that are functionally equivalent to a nucleotide. The genetic complexity, roughly measured by the number of non-redundant functional nucleotides, is expected to have grown exponentially due to several positive feedback factors: gene cooperation, duplication of genes with their subsequent specialization, and emergence of novel functional niches associated with existing genes. Linear regression of genetic complexity on a log scale extrapolated back to just one base pair suggests the time of the origin of life 9.7 billion years ago. This cosmic time scale for the evolution of life has important consequences: (i) Life took ca. 5 billion years to reach the complexity of bacteria; (ii) the environments in which life originated and evolved to the prokaryote stage may have been quite different from those envisaged on Earth; (iii) there was no intelligent life in our universe prior to the origin of Earth, thus Earth could not have been deliberately seeded with life by intelligent aliens; (iv) Earth was seeded by panspermia; (v) experimental replication of the origin of life from scratch may have to emulate many cumulative rare events; and (vi) the Drake equation for guesstimating the number of civilizations in the universe is likely wrong, as intelligent life has just begun appearing in our universe.

Evolution of advanced organisms has accelerated via development of additional information-processing systems: epigenetic memory, primitive mind, multicellular brain, language, books, computers, and Internet. As a result the doubling time of complexity has reached ca. 20 years. Finally, the research team discusses the issue of the predicted technological singularity and give a biosemiotics perspective on the increase of complexity.

Thanks for the Scientific American link. I do not work on it but I found it fascinating. Evolution and adaptation throgh epigenetics. And interesting thought about epigenetics like diversity source, should be a good research line

Methodology designed to circumnavigate the classical Abbe diffraction barrier in optical microscopy is rapidly advancing using both ensemble and single-molecule techniques.

Over the past several decades, fluorescence microscopy has become an essential tool for examining a wide variety of biological molecules, pathways, and dynamics in living cells, tissues, and whole animals. In contrast to other techniques (such as electron microscopy), fluorescence imaging is compatible with cells that are being maintained in culture, which enables minimally invasive optical-based observation of events occurring on a large span of timescales. In terms of spatial resolution, several techniques including positron-emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and optical coherence tomography can generate images of animal and human subjects at resolutions between 10 centimeters and 10 micrometers, whereas electron microscopy and scanning probe techniques feature the highest spatial resolution, often approaching the molecular and atomic levels (see Figure ). Between these two extremes in resolving power lies optical microscopy. Aside from the benefits derived from being able to image living cells, the most significant drawback to all forms of fluorescence microscopy (including widefield, laser scanning, spinning disk, multiphoton, and total internal reflection) are the limits to spatial resolution that were first elucidated and described by Ernst Abbe in the late 1800s.

The Abbe diffraction limit (or at least the recognition of this limit) stood for almost a century before inventive microscopists began to examine how their instruments could be improved to circumvent the physical barriers in order to achieve higher resolution. Due to the fact that axial resolution is far lower than lateral resolution (by at least a factor of two), much of the work conducted in the latter part of the twentieth century addressed improvements to performance in the axial dimension. Researchers discovered that laser scanning confocal instruments produced very modest increases in resolution at the cost of signal-to-noise, and that other associated technologies (including multiphoton, structured illumination, and spinning disk) could be used for optical sectioning, but without significant improvement in axial resolution. An important concept to note, and one of the most underappreciated facts associated with optical imaging in biology, is that the achieved microscope resolution often does not reach the physical limit imposed by diffraction. This is due to the fact that optical inhomogeneities in the specimen can distort the phase of the excitation beam, leading to a focal volume that is significantly larger than the diffraction-limited ideal. Furthermore, resolution can also be compromised by improper alignment of the microscope, the use of incompatible immersion oil, coverslips having a thickness outside the optimum range, and improperly adjusted correction collars.

The most significant advances in superresolution imaging have been achieved in what is termed far-field microscopy and involve either spatially or temporally modulating the transition between two molecular states of a fluorophore (such as switching between a dark and bright state) or by physically reducing the size of the point-spread function used in the excitation illumination. Among the methods that improve resolution by PSF modification, the most important techniques are referred to by the acronyms STED (stimulated emission depletion; from the Stefan Hell laboratory) and SSIM (saturated structured illumination microscopy; pioneered by Mats Gustafsson). Techniques that rely on the detection and precise localization of single molecules include PALM (photoactivated localization microscopy; introduced by Eric Betzig and Harald Hess) and STORM (stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy; first reported by Xiaowei Zhang). As will be discussed, there are many variations on these techniques, as well as advanced methods that can combine or even improve the performance of existing imaging schemes. Even more importantly, new superresolution techniques are being introduced with almost breathtaking speed (relative to traditional advances in microscopy) and it is not unreasonable to suggest that at some point in the near future, resolution of a single nanometer may well be attainable in commercial instruments.

The introduction of the first transgenic plant 30 years ago heralded the start of a second green revolution, providing food to the starving, profits to farmers and environmental benefits to boot. Many GM crops fulfilled the promise. But their success has been mired in controversy with many questioning their safety, their profitability and their green credentials. A polarized debate has left little room for consensus. In this special issue, Nature explores the hopes, the fears, the reality and the future.

Innovative educational service website designed to recreate the live learning experience on the web.

AP: Advanced Placement Biologywith: Dr. Carleen Eaton

Dr. Carleen Eaton utilizes her M.D. from the UCLA School of Medicine to bring in real world applications and examples for her AP Biology class. Carleen covers all the AP tested topics from cell structure to evolution to the laboratory review. Dr. Eaton has been teaching math and science for over 10 years and has won numerous "Teacher of the Year" awards and is consistently ranked as one of the top instructors in California. This course is indispensable for the student looking to ace the AP Biology test as Carleen covers the important concepts with fully illustrated diagrams before going in-depth into problems encountered in the multiple choice and free response sections. Topics also include Cell Structure, Genetics, Plants, Physiology, Behavior, and Ecology.

Scientists of the agency are seeking permission to cultivate a GM wheat suitable for coeliacs on a plot of Córdoba. The harvest, half a ton of grain serve to develop and carry out a clinical trial with patients. Researchers believe that the cereal could reach the market within five years...

CSIC scientists have requested permission to plant there, on a plot of 1,000 square meters, wheat whose genes have been modified so that it can be consumed by people with celiac disease, a currently incurable disease of unknown origin that affects about 1% of the world population.

When people with celiac disease consume gluten - a protein found in wheat, barley and rye - their body's defenses react and damage the intestine. As a result, there are diarrhea, vomiting and unexplained weight loss until it is given to the cause. Their only option now is to eat gluten-free foods that are more expensive. Celiacs spent each year 1,600 euros more on food than the other people. In the U.S. alone, the market for gluten-free foods moved 4,200 billion in 2012.

To remedy this, a team from the Institute of Sustainable Agriculture Cordoba, led by biologist Francisco Barro, has since 2004 investigating transgenic wheat varieties without gluten. In 2011, researchers announced that they had obtained varieties capable of producing in celiacs "a reaction up to 95% less toxic than natural wheat", according to laboratory results.

Now, Barro has asked the National Biosafety Commission for a permit to grow wheat for the first time outdoors. His goal is to harvest half a ton of grain to make crackers that will be used to conduct a clinical trial with celiacs. The test, if all goes as planned, will be held for three months with between 30 and 60 patients, who will be able to taste wheat again, until now forbidden to them, in a trial coordinated by medical Queen Sofía Hospital. The biologist believes his cereal could reach the market within five years.

Barro is aware that its GM wheat "has no chance in Europe", the continent most reluctant to genetically modified organisms. Five countries - USA, Canada, Argentina, Brazil and India - grabbing global GM production, with 152 million hectares.

Europe only allows the cultivation of two GM crops: modified corn by the U.S. company Monsanto to be resistant to insect infestation and a starch potato from German chemicals company BASF for paper and textile industries. However, following a hypocritical policy, Brussels does support importing about 40 GM products from other countries.

The CSIC has sold the license to exploit the patent for its GM wheat, to a British company, Plant Bioscience Limited, based in Norwich. "Possibly, their strategy will be to cultivate our wheat in the U.S., Argentina and China, and they will sell the flour to Spain for the price of gold", speculates Barro.

According to preliminary studies, "in the worst case, a celiac can [at least] eat every day three slices of bread made from the modified wheat". Barro team has organized a blind tasting with 11 tasters, who were unable to distinguish the normal wheat bread from the one baked with transgenic cereals.

To prevent the escape of genetically modified wheat from the plot... CSIC scientists impose a safety distance of 200 meters to any other plot with cereal. Barro considered very unlikely that there is a leak, because "wheat pollen is heavy" and cannot travel long distances on the wind.

Wheat suitable for coeliacs has its genes modified to suppress the proteins responsible for the allergic response of celiacs, gliadins. "It would be surprising that this feature gave the GM wheat a competitive advantage over the normal wheat [if it escapes]," says Barro... "There are anti-GMO environmentalists, who are celiacs, who called me to try our wheat," says Barro...

Science remains institutionally sexist. Despite some progress, women scientists are still paid less, promoted less, win fewer grants and are more likely to leave research than similarly qualified men. In this special issue, Nature takes a hard look at this gender gap and at what is being done to close it. This issue is dedicated to the memory of Maxine Clarke. In the 28 years Maxine spent championing the highest scientific standards as an editor at Nature, she was all too often the only one to ask, "Where are the women?" Cover: Viktor Koen

Scientists say amending an EU directive on GMOs could help stimulate innovation in making cheaper vaccines, pharmaceuticals and organic plastics using plants. In a paper to be published in Current Pharmaceutical Design, six scientists from the US and Europe, including Dr Penny Sparrow from the John Innes Centre, compare risk assessment and regulation between the two continents...

In the EU, plant-made pharmaceuticals have to be authorised in the same way as GM agricultural crops. In theory, agricultural crops can be grown by any farmer in the EU once approved. But for crops producing pharmaceuticals this would never actually happen. Drug companies would likely license farmers to grow these crops under controlled, defined and confined conditions...

"Plant-made pharmaceuticals challenge two sets of existing EU regulations and to make progress in this area we need to make sure they are applied sensibly to allow pharmaceuticals to be produced in plants." Advantages of using plants to produce therapeutic proteins include the ability to produce large quantities quickly and cheaply, the absence of human pathogens, the stability of the proteins and the ease with which raw material can be stored as seed. This could be of huge benefit in developing countries where problems with storage can render vaccines useless...

Just one farm growing 16,000 acres of safflower could meet the world's total demand for insulin. But potential cost savings are eliminated under current regulations, set up for GM agricultural crops not pharmaceuticals. The average cost for having GMOs approved in Europe is estimated at €7-10 million per event, compared to $1-2 million in the US. This helps keep Europe behind in exploiting the potential of these technologies...

This is a fun (but pricey) site! Check out the posters by David Goodsell. I used to have a poster of Inside a Human Cell on my wall and I loved it but lost it. Now I can get a new one! It is one of the few images that I think conveys the density and complexity of a cell.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.